In Perfect Sync

"Well, I certainly wasn't expecting visitors."

Quentin spun on his heels to find a woman in an identical set of boots and coveralls to his own. Her eyes glowed an artificial, iridescent blue. Was it cybernetics? Was it gengineering? Or was it really just another mystery of this place.

"Who are you?" he asked, hearing his voice echo off the same ethereal surfaces.

"I should ask you that. You're in my house, after all." She reached out a fist, a traditional greeting among pilots. "Maia Tannenbaum, 33rd Mechanized Cavalry."

It was her. The real her, or something. This had to be some figment, some vestige of the woman, trapped in the computer. He bumped her fist with his own, though after a moment's hesitation.

"Quentin tau-Zedna."

Maia cocked her head. "You haven't served?"

"I'm not a military pilot. I'm..." He wondered just how much he should tell this...ghost? "I'm just here to relocate Vixen."

"To steal her, you mean," she corrected. It wasn't said with malice, but with a sad tone of resignation. "Sorry, I'm just leafing through your memories right now. I mean, not all of them, just the ones from when the shunt interfaced with you."

Well, shit. Too late to deny it now. "It's been sitting in a boneyard for decades. The government isn't going to retrofit something this old, but there are plenty of places in the Outer Sphere where a machine like this can do a lot of damage. I'm here to jack it and sell it."

"I see." She clasped her hands behind her back and turned to face into the distance. Quentin was sure he could feel a distant breeze on his face, like they were both on the edge of some vast, impossibly wide canyon.

"Can you tell me what you are? Like, are you the real Maia, or just a remnant? Do you know?"

There was a long pause before she spoke. "I remember the last battle I was in, I remember the heat of the cabin from running the lasers too hot, the blood in my mouth when I took a heavy impact to the torso, and then my left side felt like it was dunked in ice water...then the rest was just blank. Or maybe not blank. I remember flashes of activity, of seeing from outside Vixen's body like it was my own. And then here, now. So am I the real Maia? Some memory subsystem flashburned with her true consciousness? Or am I a simulation? Something Vixen created to try and reroute around the need for a human mind to pilot." She shrugged.

"Okay, fair. I wouldn't know how to answer a question of if I was real either. For all I know, I'm just a figment of someone else's imagination. Though judging by the last few minutes I can remember," he blushed a little, "Someone really messed up."

"Right. The nanoslime."

He nodded. "It's a little invasive."

"It's meant for me. It's trying to recreate me, in a weird way. Vixen's been alone for longer than either of us were alive."

"Well can you stop it? I mean, not to be rude, but I don't want to be you."

"It depends," she said, turning to face him again. This time, her back straightened, the sadness tossed from her voice like shipborne detritus. "Do you still want to pilot Vixen?"

Screens appeared in the air around them. External camera feeds from all over the Battle Titan. There floated several sentinel drones and a government issue guard mech. Not a Titan, but still one with enough arms to paste him if he was caught in the open.

"Shit, shit, shit! How did they find me?"

"While you were out, Vixen has reactivated the systems she has access to without a pilot. And you can't *quietly* turn on a Battle Titan. The engine's discoverable on a seismograph. But you haven't answered my question: do you want to be a pilot?"

He nodded hastily. "Yeah, sure. I don't want to end up in a stockade, if that's what you mean."

Maia closed the distance between them, poking her whole hand into his chest. "It's not what I mean, scuzz. Anyone can sell a Battle Titan and make a few credits at the scrapyard. But do you want to be a Pilot. Do you want to be one of the most feared damn people in the entire galaxy?"

Quentin swallowed. Despite the fact that she was most likely a computer program, she was rather intimidating. And given the fact that she might actually have control of the machine at this point, she might just hold his whole fate in her simulated hands.

"I'm actually kind of a coward. I'm not a fighter."

"But I am," she replied, pointing at her simulated body's own neural port. "Here's the deal I'm offering: I'll let you take Vixen, I'll get us out of this mess. But in exchange, you give me control of your body. Just temporarily, until we're out of danger. And then we'll go from there."

He was already shaking his head before she finished speaking. "Absolutely not. Out of the question."

"You're already kinda look like a Maia already!"

"I'm not letting you bodyjack me!"

She scoffed. "Fucking civvies. Listen. We're in the shit together. I don't have a body, and you're scrounging in boneyards for cash. Neither of us is where our life coach would want us to be, yeah?"

He made a face. "I mean, you're not entirely wrong. Ouch though."

"So we work together. Unless you think you can pilot Vixen better than I can, or think that you can make more money stripping her for parts than you can as a gun for hire."

Quentin ground his teeth. The last thing he wanted was to lose autonomy. As someone who had gone freelancer and had spent not an insignificant amount of money staying outside the system, that was an important part of his life. And he had no idea if this digital revenant would keep her word and give him back control. But as much as he feared what would happen if he let Maia do her thing, he was terrified of being locked in a government prison for the rest of his natural life. A life of mediocrity, of forced labour or worse: forced counselling sessions. But it was either that, or...

"Alright...alright. What do I do?"

She stepped closer to him, their faces mere inches away. He could feel her breath, he could smell the shampoo in her hair. She was real.

"You gotta let go. I know it's not easy. I never like losing control. But," she put a hand on his arm. It was strong, but her grip was gentle. Her fingers slid up to his neck and pulled him closer, pressing his lips to hers. They kissed. It was the first kiss he'd had in a while, and the first ever that he hadn't initiated himself. It felt nice...

Quentin pulled back reflexively. He felt it. Like that shock awake where it feels like you're falling. He could feel his control slip away. Momentarily panicked, he looked for an exit. Her hands brought him back to looking into her eyes. Her beautiful, glowing eyes.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I promise. We're both in this together. See?"

Her eyes looked down, and his followed. They were both naked, that strange breeze making the hairs on his legs and arms prickle. She truly was gorgeous. Wide hips, a hefty chest, everything the suit had tried to duplicate on him. Her right hand slipped down to his cock, which was already rising to the occasion at the sight of her.

"But...if you take control...how do I know you'll give it back?" His words were fraught with worry, but he was already moving back for another kiss. She stroked his erection gently, easing his fears with her skillful touch.

"You just gotta trust me. In the field, you can't know exactly what the person next to you will do. Will they flee? Will they fold under pressure? It's out of your hands," she explained, her own hand moving up and down as her words spilled into his ear. "All I can say is that I don't want to hurt you, or subsume your mind. But I need to move, to drive, to be in control for a while. When we get out of here, we can take this Titan and be gods out there. You can have the fame, the fortune, and all the hot babes on your dick you want. All I ask is you let me be the pilot. Let me fight."

His worries were hard to hold on to. She was so confident, so effortlessly charismatic. It was like there were pieces of himself that had been missing all his life that she slotted into effortlessly. Quentin let her take control. It felt too good not to.

His awareness flickered. One moment she was stroking him off, the next he was doing it himself, the next she was masturbating her own cock that looked identical to his. To hers. It was all a jumble. That same fear response threatened to surface, but she submerged it with another kiss. But who was she kissing? It was only them there. Her there. Quentin moaned out through her mouth as they both climaxed in perfect synchronicity, simulated seed spilling out of her and onto her fingers. Until his voice was her voice. His body, her body.

"Rest now, Quentin," she whispered, feeling the tug of her awareness back to reality. "I'll take it from here."

***

The threat assessor's chirps increased in pitch and volume, filling the cockpit like a menagerie of terrified birds. Weapons lock from three sides. Flying drones wielding autocannons, and a trio of guards in a Class II Sentry of unknown construction. A priority override jammed the Titan's com channel open.

"...property of the Alliance Government. Under authority of the Military District Command, are to surrender the Battle Titan at once! This is your last warning!"

Still, the pilot sagged in the cockpit.

A fingertip wiggled. Then a foot. A whole body awakened again, buffeted by sights and sounds both familiar and strange. Her hands found the joysticks on either side without looking, then reached for the toggles and switches above. Blood pounded in her heart once more. The feeling of muscles moving beneath her skin at once felt alien yet familiar. The pilot opened her eyes; her glowing, blue eyes.

Vixen slid into her mind like a hand in a glove. Even after all these years, neither had forgotten.

"Pilot synchronization achieved. Cerebral dataloop online," the BSD declared, "All systems nominal. Welcome back, Maia."

"Good to be back, Vix. How's Quentin?"

"Cognitive Entity 2 of 2 appears stable. He's setting up some furniture in the cognition buffer's landscape. Maia, had I known you were trapped within me, I would have-"

"You couldn't. You were as trapped as I was. It's fine. We'll talk later." There was no time for commiserations or to worry about what was past. She was alive again, breathing and free. But if she didn't get a move on, it wouldn't be for long. She flew through the mech's startup sequence. The engine roared to full power. Even after all this time, all these years, Vixen purred.

"Final warning!" the guard's voice cracked. Vixen loomed over him. Even though she was a relic, she was still a giant. Adrenaline surged into her new body. The stuff of life. Maia keyed her mic to reply on the guard's frequency.

"It'll have to be one at a time, gentlemen. I'm a bit rusty." She unlocked the safeties on the weapons and checked their readouts. Missile racks empty. Gauss rifle rails were spalled and stripped of ammo. But the laser emitters were still intact; the focusing crystals humming in resonance after the better part of a century of dormancy. Fusion pumped direct energy weapons were an older weapon going by Quentin's memories, from a less civilized age. But they were reliable, required no ammunition, and in Maia's hands, she could use them like a surgeon's scalpel.

"Lots of things have changed, and I don't quite know the new steps. But I figure it's just one of those things that comes back to you."

"Target is readying weapons, open fire, open fire!" a panicked voice screamed. The sentries' weapons pinged off her armour. The autocannons they used were modern, newly issued. They were some of the latest in government tech. But Vixen was a Titan, after all. A paragon of battle. And she was alive, in more ways than one.

Maia smiled, her fingers finding triggers as the machine lurched into motion.

"Let's dance, you and I."